Long Blue Shadows Falling
by myrmidryad
Summary: Bjorn reacts to a death in the family. Athelstan accompanies him on a trip to the old farm. Spoilers for episode nine. Bjorn/Athelstan friendship.


The title is taken from lyrics to the song _Those You've Known_ from the musical _Spring Awakening_.

* * *

Helga is waiting for them on the road back into Kattegat. Floki dismounts immediately and runs to greet her, swooping her up in his arms with a joyous cackle. Bjorn and the men chuckle at his exuberance, but their smiles fade when the couple do not kiss or laugh. They are quiet, and Floki sets Helga down slowly. When they turn to face Ragnar, their expressions are grave.

"There has been a plague," Floki says softly.

The half-cheerful mood (dampened already by Rollo's absence) vanishes. They ride back to Kattegat as fast as they can. Bjorn prays to Frigg in his head that his family is alright. That Lagertha and Gyda (and yes, the priest as well) survived.

Kattegat is desolate. There are animals roaming unchecked between the houses. A cow is bellowing somewhere nearby, begging to be milked. Chickens squawk as the horses scatter them. They had slowed down to enter the village, but now Ragnar spurs his mount forward, heading for the hall. Bjorn and the others follow, and as they pass the docks, they see the pyres on the beach. Bjorn counts five before they gallop past, but thinks there were more.

Oh, Frigg, how many have died?

Ragnar leaps from his horse before it stops, stumbling on his way up the steps to the hall. Bjorn swings his legs down as fast as he can and follows. Rollo should be here, he thinks as he scrambles inside after his father. Family should not be parted in times like this. Or ever.

The hall is a mess. There are signs of makeshift beds in rows up the length of the space, and the air stinks of sage, for purification. Bjorn sees a few lumps moving on the floor – those still sick – and steers clear as he runs after Ragnar, who bursts into the chamber behind the throne as if Hela herself were after him.

Bjorn cries out when he sees her, "Mother!" but Ragnar gets there first, crushing her in a bear-hug and burying his face in her hair. Bjorn waits for his turn, reassured now that he has seen her alive and well, and catches sight of Athelstan in the shadows. So he is alive too.

But there is someone missing. Bjorn looks around, dread settling like ice in his stomach. His parents are busy, as they so often are, so he asks Athelstan instead. "Priest!"

Athelstan flinches, and as he steps forward into the light Bjorn sees how much thinner he is, how ragged his hair and pallid his skin. He has been ill, but recovered. "Where's Gyda?" he asks Athelstan, fear making him sound angry. "Priest? Where is my sister?"

Athelstan looks down and his eyes close for a moment before he shakes his head. He doesn't need to say it aloud for Bjorn to understand, and he runs immediately to his parents. "Mother," he grabs her arm, and when she looks at him there are tears on her cheeks. He's never seen her cry before. He knows what's wrong, but he still asks. He needs to hear her confirm it. "Where's Gyda?"

Lagertha swallows twice before she opens her mouth, and when she speaks her voice is cracked. "She is dead, Bjorn."

Ragnar falls to his knees and Bjorn steps back, shaking his head. His world is falling apart, and it's happening too fast for him to make sense of it. When his father screams it makes him and Athelstan jump, but Lagertha just bows her head as Ragnar hunches his back and howls like a wounded animal.

He can't stay here. Bjorn flees the chamber, running through the rooms he has only just begun to think of as home until he's in the back courtyard. It's a private space for the earl's family, and no one is here to see him draw his sword and scream a battle cry at the air, launching himself at the practice block set to the side, hacking at it over and over until his arm aches with the badly aimed strikes. Splinters and small chunks of wood strike his face, but he doesn't stop. He can't stop.

He doesn't hear the priest calling his name until he pauses to readjust his grip. "Bjorn! Bjorn, stop –"

He rounds on Athelstan furiously, and the priest backs away from the naked blade in Bjorn's hand. "Who are you to tell me to stop? What makes you think you can command me? Why –" Why are you alive, he wants to ask, but changes the words at the last moment. "Why are you here?"

Athelstan hunches his thin shoulders and looks at the ground, the very picture of subservience. "I wanted to make sure you were alright."

Alright? Bjorn bares his teeth. How could he possibly be alright? His sister…his little sister, his pretty little sister with her long hair she loved to play with was dead. Already burned. Already in Hel.

In Hel, not Valhalla, where he knows he will go, which means he will never see her again. They will be separated forever. He had wanted her to be a shieldmaiden like their mother so they would feast together in Odin's halls for all eternity, but now that dream is dead. She had only just become a woman. She was not even thirteen summers old.

"It's not fair!" he shouts out loud, gripping his sword so tight his hand shakes. "It's not fair!"

"I know." Athelstan doesn't look up. "I'm sorry."

His words only serve to fan the flames in Bjorn's belly. He should be sorry. He _would_ be sorry. "Why are you here?" he asks again, a furious hiss. "Why are you alive when she is dead? You're not even one of us! You weren't even born here!"

Athelstan looks at him and the fire dies slightly at the sight of tears on the priest's face. "I know," Athelstan whispers. "I wish…I wish I had died. I wish I had died and she'd lived."

Bjorn feels his chin tremble and swallows the lump in his throat. "I hate you!" he bellows. "I hate you!" He flings his sword away as hard as he can and fists his hands in his hair, pulling tight to feel the pain of it. "I hate father for taking us away! And I hate the king for telling him to leave! And I hate the plague, and I hate the gods! I hate them all!" his voice breaks and he squeezes his eyes shut to try in vain to keep the tears back. "It's not fair! It's not –" Shudders of pain go up his thighs as he falls to his knees on the hard ground, just as Ragnar had done. But instead of screaming, Bjorn just cries.

"I hate my god too," he hears Athelstan whisper.

Bjorn shoves himself up and throws himself at the priest, slamming a fist against his chest and shouting, "Shut up! Your god doesn't exist! He's not real!" The Christian god is false and the real ones are cruel. How are they supposed to live in such a world? "I hate you!" he sobs, and cries harder when Athelstan wraps his arms around him and holds him tight against his thin body. "I hate you, I hate the gods, I hate everything!"

"I know," Athelstan says, and Bjorn can tell that he's crying too. "I'm sorry. Bjorn, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" They stand together like that until Bjorn's throat is raw and the front of Athelstan's shirt is soaked through.

x

Most of Gyda's belongings had been burned with her body, but Bjorn knows there are still some things of hers left. Hidden. They had planned to travel back to their old home together after the winter and retrieve the things Gyda had hidden under the floor of their house. While Ragnar stays in Kattegat to tell Lagertha about Aslaug (sorrow upon sorrow for his strong, powerful mother), Bjorn orders Athelstan to pack a bag and find a horse.

They're silent as they leave town. Bjorn leads the way and Athelstan follows him the way he follows his father. Once Kattegat is out of sight, Bjorn falls back to ride alongside him and asks sharply, "What does your god say about death, priest?"

Athelstan bows his head and replies after a long pause. "That there is a time for all things, and…a season for every activity under the sun. A…a time to be born, and a time…a time to die."

"I have heard you say that before," Bjorn frowns. "When father was wounded. Do you still believe that?"

Athelstan heaves a sigh and looks up at the clouds. "I don't know. I don't know what I believe anymore."

"My sister is in Hel now." Bjorn watches Athelstan closely for his reaction to the words. He remembers how Gyda had needed to explain what Hel was to the priest, because for Christians, Hel was a place of fire and unending torment. "Do you believe that?"

"Does it matter?" Athelstan sounds tired, but Bjorn doesn't let up.

"It matters to me. Did your god protect you from the fever, do you think? Is that why you lived?"

"I don't know!" The shout is shocking – Bjorn has never heard Athelstan raise his voice before. The priest glares at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I don't know anything anymore. I don't understand why I lived and Gyda died. I don't understand why Thyri died and Siggy lived, or why Lagertha never got ill at all. I don't know anything. I haven't known anything since the day your damned father killed my brothers and brought me here as a slave."

Bjorn stares at him, anger turning slowly to curiosity. "Do you hate him for that?"

Athelstan sighs again and shakes his head. "I don't know."

They're silent for a long time before Bjorn asks, "Do you hate us? Do you hate being here?"

"No." Athelstan looks at him and a ghost of a smile flickers across his fever-pale face. "I've never hated you, or Gyda. And I think…I think this is my home now, more than England."

The words please Bjorn, though he can't say why. "Good," he says instead, "because you're not leaving."

Athelstan snorts, and though Bjorn can't quite smile yet, it's a close thing.

They reach the farm before nightfall, but they can't spare the time to look for Gyda's things if they want to set up camp before dark. "We'll stay here." Bjorn gestures to their old courtyard, and Athelstan nods. He collects firewood while Bjorn unrolls their sleeping bags and gets out the food he'd prepared for tonight. They eat quietly and sleep on opposite sides of the fire. Bjorn faces the gate, more equipped to defend them if they're attacked in the night. He still considers it more than a little pathetic how useless Athelstan is in a fight, but he's also still weak from the fever – Bjorn should have gotten the firewood, should've noticed how Athelstan's hands were trembling – and that excuses his weakness somewhat.

Athelstan sleeps late, far past sunrise, and Bjorn lets him. He leaves Athelstan as he explores the remains of their farm, running his hands over the crumbled walls and walking over the knocked-down fences. Earl Haraldson's men did a good job of destroying their home. He's glad those men are either dead, gone, or have sworn allegiance to his father. He waits for Athelstan to stir before going inside. For some reason, he doesn't want to do this alone.

Athelstan thanks him with a nod for letting him sleep. Bjorn thinks of telling him that he can't let him die of exhaustion now, but talk of death would be too painful. Instead, he gives Athelstan an extra slice of bread and watches him to make sure he eats it all before beckoning him towards the house.

"Gyda hid some things here," he explains as he shoves a fallen, charred beam aside. Athelstan hasn't actually asked why they're here, but the confused look on his face clears at Bjorn's words. It takes a moment to figure out where the hearth was, and from there where his old bed used to be, and it takes longer to clear the space. Bjorn lets Athelstan help until he starts to pant, and then orders him to sit down.

"I can help," Athelstan protests, sweat beading on his forehead. Bjorn shakes his head and points to a nearby log.

"You're no good if you faint. Sit down. I can do the rest."

He clears the area and kicks at the ash on the ground until he finds the old earth floor. It takes him longer than he'd like to figure out where Gyda's secret spot is without the familiar objects of the house around him, but he manages in the end and calls Athelstan over as he starts to dig.

"This is where she hid her treasure?" Athelstan asks softly. Bjorn cleaves earth and nods.

"Not much. A brooch. A toy father made her. A boss from one of mother's shields. Some jewellery, I think."

The treasure is there. Not buried deep, wrapped in cloth to protect it. Bjorn gives each object to Athelstan as they are unearthed, and he handles them with the reverence he once showed to that odd leather-covered thing he called _book_. For each object, he tells Athelstan a little about it.

"That bead came off a necklace father brought back from a raid once. It broke and Gyda thought he'd be angry, but he just laughed."

"It's a spinning top. It used to be mine, but when I got a new one, Gyda got this one."

"This feather came from a hawk that sat on our roof for three days. We gave it food and it flew away, and we never saw it again."

"It's a weight from a set of scales. See how the engraving's wonky? The smith gave it to her because the trader didn't want a weight with a wonky design."

"Father got sick once and his beard grew. When he cut it off, Gyda kept the tip."

"This brooch was mother's, and her mother's before her. It's passed down through the women of the family. Gyda only wore it on special occasions."

One thing is new, and Bjorn stares at the twists of leather wrapped in the rough brown cloth with a frown. Athelstan looks over his shoulder and exclaims, "That's mine!"

Bjorn looks at him "What?"

Athelstan takes it from his hands gently. "When my sandals came apart, Gyda told me she'd thrown them out. And this cloth is from my old habit."

"She liked you," Bjorn says quietly. "She only buried things from us. From our family."

Athelstan's fingers tremble around the cloth of his old life, and Bjorn nudges him. "It's yours again now."

"Why did she bury them?" Athelstan asks, not moving.

"To keep them safe." Bjorn looks at the shallow, empty hole. "We were going to come back together, when I got back. She was going to collect it all and take it to our new home."

Athelstan puts the cloth and leather aside and puts his hand on Bjorn's shoulder. He doesn't shake it off, and after a moment, Athelstan squeezes gently. They don't speak. Ragnar or Lagertha should be here with him, doing this with him, but they're too busy for anything these days. His mother rules Kattegat and his father runs where the king tells him, and fucks other women while he's there.

He hates them too, especially his father.

"You bury your dead, don't you, priest?" he says.

Athelstan moves away and nods. "We do."

"Why?"

"The dead are as those who sleep," the priest murmurs. He meets Bjorn's eyes and frowns. "Jesus Christ was buried and rose again after three days."

"And you copy him?" Bjorn kicks dirt back into the hole and stands up. "Just because Odin hung for nine days on Yggdrasil we don't all nail ourselves to ash trees."

Athelstan makes a small sound of agreement, but Bjorn isn't ready to be quiet yet.

"When you die, what do you want to be done with your body?"

Athelstan stares at him. "You're not planning on sacrificing me again, are you?"

Bjorn smiles, his first since he learned of Gyda's death. He remembers threatening to do that when Ragnar left the priest in charge of the farm. He had been furious. "No," he reassures him. "It is not your fate to be sacrificed, remember?"

Athelstan ducks his head and turns away, stooping to carefully collect the objects they have dug up. "I suppose I don't mind," he says after a moment.

"We could burn your body like one of us?" Bjorn bends down to help and they straighten at the same time, Gyda's treasure shared between them.

Athelstan nods. "Yes. I wouldn't mind."

Bjorn mulls that over as they pack up and prepare to leave, carefully storing Gyda's belongings in the centre of the rolled sleeping bags to keep them safe. No gold or silver has ever been transported so lovingly, Bjorn thinks, and doesn't look back at his old home once as they ride away.

On the way back, he starts to talk to Athelstan. He tells him about his earliest memories of Gyda – him pulling her hair and her crying – and of tricks they played on each other when they were younger. He tells Athelstan about the time they tried to lift Lagertha's shield and could only manage it when they heaved together. He tells the story of when he sliced his finger open on a knife and Gyda helped him bandage it and hide it from their parents. The memories and stories pour out in a torrent – the time he cut off a piece of her hair and she attacked him like a wildcat, her fondness for the baby animals, the time she stopped him taking owl eggs out of a nest, and instead they waited together for the mother bird to return. They had gone back every day until the chicks hatched, ugly beaks and desperate chirps quickly maturing into glossy feathers and killer talons.

Gyda's favourite colour was yellow, like his hair and their mother's. She was so gentle she'd once made friends with the notoriously fierce guard dog of a trader who'd once come to their house. Bandits tried to take the farm and kill them when Bjorn was six or seven summers old, and Gyda had slept in their parents' bed for weeks afterwards. She had been born in springtime, when the mountains were bursting with life and new colour after the bleak winter.

When he has to stop, his voice growing hoarse from the constant speaking, Athelstan takes up the thread. He tells Bjorn about the things Gyda had taught him – how to wear clothes like them, how to tend the garden, the correct way to hold a spear for fishing. He reminds Bjorn of the names Gyda gave to the animals, names that would disappear as soon as the animal became destined for the table because names were only for pets and livestock fated to live, not for beasts that filled their bellies. He describes Gyda's excitement when he'd showed her the bright pictures in his book and told her he'd coloured them himself.

Gyda taught Athelstan to weave and repair clothes. Gyda gave him his first hug since he'd arrived. Gyda let him talk about his home. Gyda asked about his family. Gyda explained the words he didn't understand and taught him new ones. Gyda made him feel welcome, a scared, lonely priest far from home.

Between the two of them, Bjorn and Athelstan remind each other of other times. When Gyda burnt the fish and apologised a dozen times in a row without stopping to breathe. Her dazzled, disbelieving smile when Ragnar was made earl and she was given bright new clothes to wear, a new brooch to pin her cloak, and new necklaces and bracelets of precious stones and silver. The time she became stern to feed Ragnar his soup when he was wounded at Floki's. The way she copied Helga and followed her everywhere, much to Helga's amusement. Her fingers twisting Athelstan's new beard until she could thread a bead onto it. Her approval at the result, her eyes becoming fierce when it looked like Ragnar might make fun of it.

Bjorn keeps their pace deliberately slow, so they have to stop for the night before continuing for Kattegat in the morning. He doesn't want to return to the huge, chilly halls where his mother's face will be a mask of stone and his father's pain will manifest in words sharper than blades. His family is breaking if not already broken, but as long as he and Athelstan are here in this limbo between his old life and the new, the loss stings a little less.

"What did you tell Gyda when she asked about your family?" he asks suddenly as he is building the fire (he has collected the firewood this time, and left Athelstan to roll out their bags).

Athelstan breathes in deeply. "I told her I had four brothers, and a sister, and a mother and father also."

"Are they still in England?"

"They're all dead." Athelstan keeps his eyes on the fire as Bjorn coaxes it into life, blowing onto the sparks until the flames begin to consume the kindling unaided.

"How did they die?"

"A fever." _Like Gyda_ goes unspoken.

"You survived then as well?" Bjorn frowns.

"I wasn't there." Athelstan doesn't meet his eyes. "I didn't hear about it for months."

"Why?"

"They'd already put me in the monastery by then. They couldn't feed so many children, so they gave me away. If they hadn't done that, I would have died with them." So Ragnar would never have found him on the first raid west. He would never have become their slave, and then their not-slave. Bjorn thinks about that.

"Do you miss them?"

"No." Athelstan holds his hands out to the fire, expression unreadable. "I barely remember them."

"So you miss Gyda more."

"Of course. You're…" he hesitates, falls silent.

Bjorn leans forward, urging him to finish the sentence. "What?"

"You're my family now," Athelstan says, almost too quietly for Bjorn to catch it over the crackle of the fire between them. The statement would have annoyed Bjorn not so long ago. Perhaps even angered him. Now he just nods. Gyda considered him family, after all. Why shouldn't he? "She missed you, you know," Athelstan adds.

Bjorn stares at him, confused. "Missed me?"

"When you left with Ragnar to visit Earl Borg. And before. You started spending more time with Ragnar, away from her and Lagertha, and she missed you."

"She said that?"

Athelstan nods, and smiles slightly at him. "She said she didn't miss your loud voice, or the way you'd put your feet in her face to make her squeal, but she missed the way you used to talk to her. You'd tell each other stories?"

"A story game," Bjorn finds himself explaining it before he can stop himself. "You take turns to add a bit. I would say, a trader comes to the house looking for the famous shieldmaiden Lagertha. She would say, he's looking to trade because he has an enchanted shield he thinks she would want. I'd say, she pretends not to be interested. She'd say, the trader isn't fooled, and adds something else to sweeten the deal."

"What else?" Athelstan asks, intrigued. Bjorn shrugs.

"I don't know. A new cloak? Some furs? You can't do it on your own. You need at least two people. When we were little, sometimes we would all do it together."

"With your parents?"

"Yes. Though that usually ended with them sending us to bed so they could have sex." He rolls his eyes and Athelstan smiles. Bjorn remembers seeing Aslaug in bed with his father and scowls at the fire. He's seen his parents fucking before, and it was impossible not to hear them when they all lived in their old house, and though he's always avoided the sight as much as possible, he'd rather force himself to watch them all night long than see either of them in bed with other people. It's unnatural. And it's just another ingredient in the poison destroying their family from the inside out.

"Go to sleep, priest," he mutters, poking at the fire.

"What about you?"

"I'll keep watch for a bit."

Athelstan looks for a moment as though he'll protest, but then he obediently shuffles into his sleeping bag and lies down. Bjorn watches him as the night grows thicker and darker around the circle of light the fire casts. The priest _is_ part of his family. He understands that now. Gyda saw it first, of course, but she was always the more sensitive of the two of them. He could have come alone, after all. He knows the way, and Thor knows Athelstan isn't worth anything as protection. But he hadn't wanted to make the journey on his own, and with his parents occupied with each other, he hadn't even considered bringing anyone but Athelstan.

Only Athelstan truly knows what it was like to live with them. He's the only other person who's slept under the roof of their old house, worked on their old farm, and loved Gyda as they had. He isn't a father or a brother, and certainly not an uncle like Rollo, but he's still family. And right now, Bjorn feels like he could use all the familiarity he could get.


End file.
